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The world is not going to end tomorrow because of fossil fuels. Man’s use of fossil fuels has not been proven to be the source of climate change. Climate change has happened since climate began. All of these statements are very logical and true, but somehow those pursuing ‘green energy’ work very hard to periodically convince all of us that if we use fossil fuel, we are all going to die next week (while flying around in their private jets). Green energy is in theory a great idea, but I can’t help thinking that the search for a totally green source of energy is somehow related to the search for the perpetual motion machine. It’s a great idea, but it defies the law of physics. At any rate, we are doing better at keeping the environment clean today than we were in the early 1900’s despite much greater energy usage.

Horned Larks are cute little songbirds with white bellies and yellow chins–at least, now they are. A hundred years ago, at the height of urban smoke pollution in the US, their pale feathers were stained dark gray by the soot in the atmosphere. A new paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences shows that the discoloration of birds in museum collections can be used to trace the amount of black carbon in the air over time and the effects of environmental policy upon pollution.

“The soot on these birds’ feathers allowed us to trace the amount of black carbon in the air over time, and we found that the air at the turn of the century was even more polluted than scientists previously thought,” says Shane DuBay, a graduate student at The Field Museum and the University of Chicago and one of the authors of the study. He and co-author Carl Fuldner, also a graduate student at UChicago, analyzed over a thousand birds collected over the last 135 years to determine and quantify the effects of soot in the air over cities in the Rust Belt.

…Birds were also ideal candidates for the study because they molt and grow a new set of feathers every year, meaning that the soot on them had only been accumulating for the past year when they were collected. And there was an apparent trend: old birds were dirtier, and new birds were cleaner.

The article concludes:

DuBay notes that in addition to the environmental implications of the project, their work also shows the importance of museum collections like those they used from The Field Museum in Chicago, the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh, and the University of Michigan Museum of Zoology in Ann Arbor. “I hope this study exposes collections as a valuable resource to address present day environmental concerns,” says DuBay. “This paper shows the ways that natural history collections can be used, underlining the value in collections and in continuing to build collections, to help us improve our understanding of human impacts on the natural world.”

Fossil fuel is now abundantly available in America. We can use our scientific talents to make it as clean as possible. Like it or not, it is the basis of our economy.

This radical leftist group, specializing in immigration, is a more extreme version of the far left version of National Council on La Raza in Illinois.

The group was featured in an article profiling some of the groups intending to protest Trump’s rally in the left-wing website, Progress Illinois on March 8 entitled “New Americans Hit The Polls In Chicago As Immigrant Advocates Gear Up For Anti-Trump Protest.”

…La Raza Chicago

The Chicago branch of the notoriously radical pro-illegal immigration group had people on site and detailing the events in a post on its site.

“Donald Trump canceled its event Friday night at the University of Illinois at Chicago, for safety reasons, including the thousands of protesters who gathered inside and outside the venue,” read an English translation of the post, “protesting his presence, which has already caused confrontations with supporters of Trump and the authorities.”

I have no problem with protesting anyone’s presence, the problem occurs when the protests prevent someone from exercising their First Amendment rights. These protesters were similar to the anarchists who routinely disrupt international economic meetings. When they cross the line between protest and violence, they need to be arrested. These groups do not add to our representative republic, they undermine it.

MSNBC is reporting today on the protests that forced the cancellation of the rally to support Donald Trump in Chicago last night. This is a story that needs to be looked at carefully. America has a First Amendment. Donald Trump has as much right as anyone to speak out. Protesters also have the right to speak out. They don’t, however, have the right to destroy property or prevent anyone else from speaking. For a number of years we have seen conservative speakers shut down at college campuses; now we are seeing a Presidential candidate prevented from speaking. That does not bode well for the future of our country. We need to take a look at these ‘protests’ and see who organized them (they were organized) and what they are actually about.

Yesterday Gateway Pundit posted an article about the Chicago protesters.

Thousands of leftwing protesters were expected today to protest Donald Trump at the University of Chicago Illinois campus.5,000-7,000 people were already inside the pavilion at 5 PM Central. Thousands more were still in a line that stretched several blocks.

I guess some leopards just don’t change their spots.

MSNBC reported:

When Ja’Mal Green, a prominent black activist and Bernie Sanders supporter in Chicago, saw that Donald Trump was coming to the University of Illinois Chicago, he knew what he had to do. “Everyone, get your tickets to this. We’re all going in!!!! ‪#‎SHUTITDOWN‬,” he posted on Facebook last week.

Little did he know they actually would shut it down.

Friday night, hundreds of protesters invaded Trump’s rally while thousands more marched outside, leading the candidate to abruptly cancel the event due to safety concerns. The night spun out from there, as angry Trump fans clashed with protesters, who saw the shutdown as a victory.

This sort of political activity does not belong in the American political system.

The article further reports:

A Facebook page was started to promote the protest. By the night of Trump rally, more than 11,600 people had RSVP’d on the page saying they would attend the event. Another 19,000 said they were “interested.” Organizers were shocked when Facebook’s analytics said the page reached more than 1.5 million users.

The page explained how to acquire tickets to the Trump rally, complete with links, instructions on where and when to meet, and exhortations to remain peaceful.

Jorge Mena, a undocumented graduate student at UIC, started a petition on MoveOn.org calling on the school’s administration to cancel the event. The petition garnered more than 50,000 signatures, and once brass at MoveOn, which has endorsed Sanders, caught wind of the UIC backlash, they wanted to help. MoveOn chipped in money to get signs and a banner printed and blasted out an email to members in the Chicago area encouraging them to join the protest.

With just four days to plan, organizers said more than 1,000 students turned out for the march, along with thousands of community members.

It’s a shame that this sort of organization and energy could not have been directed toward something more constructive. Again, protests are allowed; shutting down speech is not.

Normally the ‘Style’ section of the newspaper is not a place where you expect to find anything that is actually important news, but yesterday the Washington Post placed a very interesting article there. This is NOT an unimportant article.

The article reports:

White Housejournalists are creating an alternative system for distributing their media “pool” reports in response to the Obama administration’s involvement in approving and disapproving certain content in official reports.

A small group of reporters initiated an online forum this month in which they shared “pool” information among themselves, without White House involvement. The forum was set up by the White House Correspondents’ Association (WHCA), which negotiates with the White House’s press staff over access for journalists.

So what is this about?

The article explains:

Reporters have complained that the Obama White House exploits its role as distributor to demand changes in pool reports and that the press office has delayed or refused to distribute some reports until they are amended to officials’ satisfaction.

But now, some journalists are sharing their White House reporting using Google Groups — the digital service that allows registered users to receive and send information within a closed circle. In an early test of the supplemental system, journalists shared pool information about President Obama’s trip to Chicago this month. The system has been used for “advisories,” such as where the pool is assembling, when another pool report will be issued or whether a correction is in the works.

To put this simply–the White House has been controlling the news about the President. Reporters have decided that they want to make their own decisions about how and what they report.

The timing on this is very interesting. We are weeks away from a pivotal election–I don’t know if we can expect a Republican ‘wave’ election, but I expect the Republicans to do well in the mid-terms. President Obama’s approval ratings are low, and people will begin to question the accuracy of the media (as many already do) if they keep reporting on the President through rose-colored glasses.

America is a Representative Republic. Our country relies on an informed electorate to preserve our Constitution and our freedom. It is the responsibility of the press to inform that electorate in an objective way. In recent years the press has forgotten how to do that. Maybe this current rebellion against White House control of the White House press corps is the beginning of positive change.

The Hill posted an article today about President Obama’s decision to delay any executive order regarding immigration. First of all, it is not President Obama’s job to write an executive order regarding immigration–that responsibility belongs to Congress.

The article reports:

Latino groups on Saturday promised they would “not soon forget” President Obama’s move to delay any executive action on the border crisis until after the midterm elections.

A White House official said Obama decided to postpone acting on immigration until after November because of the tremulous political season and “Republican’s extreme politicization of the issue.”

Loosely translated this means that if the President unilaterally passed amnesty for illegal immigrants, the Democrats would seriously lose the midterm elections.

The article further reports:

While a number of Democrats facing reelection pressured Obama to delay action after he vowed on Friday to move on immigration “soon,” a leading Democrat, Rep. Luis Gutierrez (Ill.) has urged the president to “lean in” on reform.

Gutierrez scolded his colleagues earlier this week, telling them to “stand aside” and let Obama take action.

Gutierrez is scheduled to hold a press conference in Chicago on Monday with immigrant families that will be impacted by the administration’s decisions on immigration and deportations, an advisory states.

Our immigration system needs reform, but more than that, our borders need to be secure. Anyone can enter America through our porous borders. (In August I posted a picture at rightwinggranny of James O’Keefe crossing our southern border dressed as Osama Bin Laden.) What kind of a terrorist attack do we have to have in America before we pay attention to border security?

Theoretically, gun control makes sense. In a perfect world (which we obviously do not live in), if you got rid of guns, you would end gun violence. Unfortunately, we don’t live in a perfect world, and gun control does not end gun violence. Chicago has some of the strictest gun laws in the country, but it also has one of the highest rates of gun violence. July 4th weekend is known as a particularly bad weekend to be in Chicago.

Western Journalism posted a story yesterday about a shooting incident in Chicago this past weekend,

The article reports:

According to the Chicago Tribune, Denzel Mickiel placed a cup on the roof of a car that belonged to a female partygoer. When she removed the cup, he reportedly became irate and began screaming at her.

A short time later, reports indicate Mickiel returned with a gun and began shooting at the woman and those with her. One of her friends, however, happened to be a soldier and concealed carry permit holder.

Assistant State’s Attorney Mary Hain claims the serviceman took cover, drew his weapon, and returned fire. After firing twice, hitting Mickiel with both shots, the group was able to escape.

Two additional individuals continued firing on the four victims as they sped away in two separate vehicles. One young woman in the group was hit, reports indicate, and sustained injuries to her arm and back.

Mickiel was taken to a nearby hospital, where he was listed in critical condition. Still hospitalized Sunday, a judge ruled he be charged with attempted murder and held on $950,000 bail. The remaining two shooters have yet to be identified.

We need to have good people with guns. If they are among us, they can protect people before the police have time to get there. Thank God for that soldier. It would have been too late when the police arrived.

Karoluk, herself a Muslim woman, said that although CAIR doesn’t oppose raising awareness, the source of funding for the film, the Clarion Project, is “Islamophobic.” The film’s backers, she said, “use it to promote their own hate-filled agenda.”

…Kelly also spokeMonday night about the film. The documentary, she reported, features “a diverse group of women with different faiths, backgrounds, and nationalities, all of them focused on promoting women’s rights, especially in countries where women and girls are often subjected to something known as honor violence.”

There is nothing hate-filled about showing a film that reveals the abuses of women under Islam. There is everything hate-filled about trying to prevent people from learning about those abuses.

So why would the American Public Transportation Association be telling us that ridership of public transportation is up? Well, it has to do with the way highway funds are distributed.

The article explains:

APTA is promoting the idea of a transit boom because it would like to see lots of federal money continue to be spent on transit. It already is: as King et al. point out, transit receives about 20 percent of federal surface transportation funding while accounting for only 2 to 3 percent of U.S. passenger trips. And as Cox points out, two-thirds of the recent rise in transit commuting occurred in the six “transit legacy cities”–New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Boston and Washington. These six cities have the nation’s six largest concentrations of downtown office employment, and transit routes were designed to funnel people into and out of these concentrated areas. Transit use has languished in other areas with subways or much touted light railway systems like Portland‘s.

Those who complain about the condition of the nation’s highways need to remember that since the 1980’s, money has been taken from highway funding to pay for bike paths and other items that are not related to maintaining highways. The program with our highways is not lack of money–it is how the money is spent. The amount of spending on public transportation in relation to the percentage of the population that uses public transportation is another example of the government trying to force people to do something they are not interested in doing. That is not the government’s job.

Townhall.com posted an article today about some of the scandals that have been occurring in America’s Public Sector Unions. Remember, the members of the Public Sector Unions are people whose benefits and salaries are paid by the taxpayer.

The article lists several recent scandals. Here are a few:

A Chicago union leader takes a leave of absence in 1989 from the city’s sanitation department, where he earned $40,000, to work for a union. He is then allowed to “retire” from the city at age 56 with $108,000 pension. (The rules say that the individual should waive a union pension to do this. In this case, the official reportedly does not waive the union pension. The city knows this, but grants the city pension anyway.)

16 psychiatrists working for California are paid $400,000 or more. One of them, with a degree from an Afghan medical school, takes home $822,302

More than half the lifeguards working for Newport Beach, CA earn more than $150,000 in 2010. One earns $203,481. A lifeguard labor union spokesman comments: “We have negotiated very fair and very reasonable salaries. . . . Lifeguard salaries here are well within the norm of other city employees.”

There are many more examples listed in the article. This might be the reason many of our towns, cities and states are on the verge of bankruptcy.

The article reminds us of the relationship between union dues and political contributions:

The American Federation of Teachers (AFT) collects $211 million in dues in 2010; the National Education Association (NEA) $397 million. With state affiliates included, the total approaches $1 billion. The AFT president makes nearly half a million, and almost 600 officials at the two unions earn over $100,000. $297 million is donated to political campaigns over a decade—with total political spending much higher. It is hard to say how high the spending really is because members do not receive complete information.

…For the fifty states as a whole, unfunded public employee benefit liabilities are at least $1.26 trillion, according to the PEW Center on the states.

This information comes from a book entitled, Crony Capitalism in America 2008-2012, Chapter 19, Public Sector Union Scandals Begin to Leak by Hunter Lewis. The book is available at Amazon.com.

There might be a few clues in the above examples of union abuse of taxpayer money as to how America might begin to trim its state, local and federal budgets.

Some conservatives call it the “Al Gore Effect.” Almost every time global warming groups plan a big meeting in Washington, they get snowed out (you’d think they would get smart and move their meetings to Florida). Well, it happened again.

Western Journalism reported yesterday that this week the White House hosted the State, Local, and Tribal Leaders Task Force on Climate Preparedness and Resilience. The group headed to Washington, D.C. to discuss a plan of action against the perceived threat of global warming just as a massive winter storm struck the nation’s capital.

The article reports:

One of the participants, Gov. Pat Quinn of Obama’s beloved Illinois, made the trip Tuesday after Chicago experienced its coldest night in nearly 20 years. Everyone on the task force got a taste of reality as D.C. was largely shut down due to inclement weather.

Though government offices were closed, the global warming summit continued as planned. This delicious irony was apparently lost on these cult-like adherents to a flawed climatological hypothesis.

There is a school of meteorology that has been warming of global cooling due to the slow down in the number of solar flares (rightwinggranny.com). These scientists believe that the sun has a very large impact on the earth’s climate.

The Obama Administration has been known to use Chicago-style political tactics to silence its opposition. Evidently it has been using those tactics on the insurance industry to silence comments on the fiasco the roll-out of ObamaCare has been.

Laszewski, who’s been a vocal critic of Obamacare, said he’s been asked by insurance executives to speak out because they feel defenseless against an administration that is regulating their business — and a big customer.

…Laszewski said insurance company officials are embarrassed that they have to cancel plans and force people into more robust, and possibly more expensive, coverage.

Keep your plan? Maybe not

Insurers, he said, warned the White House that the regulations would lead to discontinued policies.

“One of the things I think is clear here is the Obama administration has no trust in anything the health insurance industry is telling them about how to run a health plan,” Laszewski said.

The only way ObamaCare could possibly be fixed would be with ideas from the people who understand how health insurance works. That would be the insurance companies that are currently being gagged and shut out of the process. This is the equivalent of allowing someone with a Liberal Arts degree to design an atomic bomb. The person being asked to perform the task is intelligent, but you are asking them to do something outside the area of their expertise. The ObamaCare plan is an example of what happens when you ask people with no experience in an industry to take over that industry. We need to get the government out of healthcare and move it to the private sector. It would be a good idea to introduce tax credits to allow poor people to buy insurance coverage, to allow insurance policies to be sold across state lines, and to institute tort reform, but other than that, the government needs to get out of the healthcare business.

Ingram attempted to counsel the White House on a lawsuit from religious organizations opposing Obamacare’s contraception mandate. Email exchanges involving Ingram and White House officials — including White House health policy advisor Ellen Montz and deputy assistant to the president for health policy Jeanne Lambrew — contained confidential taxpayer information, according to Oversight.

Unfortunately, we have an administration that routinely uses Chicago-style tactics to intimidate people who disagree with them. Debate on issues is part of the American political system. This administration has done everything possible to squelch that debate. If you disagree with President Obama, his staff will attempt to intimidate you. If that doesn’t work, media allies are called in. Please notice that the media targets any new Republican leaders that might actually move the country away from the policies of President Obama. There are some real conflicts between ObamaCare and the First Amendment rights of Bible-believing Christians. The Obama Administration decided to ignore those rights and to engage in a campaign against the people and organizations that supported those rights. It we don’t stand up to this administration, we have only ourselves to blame when we realize that much of our freedom is gone.

Bill Ayers, after avoiding prosecution on domestic terrorism charges, famously stated, “Guilty as hell, free as a bird—it’s a great country.” Well, he really hasn’t changed much. He has just adopted a more peaceful strategy in trying to ruin America.

The letter says that the closing of the schools is causing massive human rights violations.

The article reports:

The letter argues that the 49 school closings violate human rights because they affect black families disproportionately, because they force students to cross gang lines to get to the new schools they will attend, because class sizes will be slightly larger and because the school closings happened despite the objections of some people.

The dispatch asks the U.N. to “urge the United States to investigate and prevent these human rights violations.”

It’s not clear how or if the U.N.’s human rights office will act. The U.N. has no power to direct or regulate any federal, state or municipal government in the United States. The international body is, of course, free to conduct inquiries and issue findings, however.

An American city trying to balance its budget by closing schools and consolidating their educational program is running the risk of being investigated by the United Nations. This is not acceptable. First of all, according to a website called betterworldcampaign.org, America pays 22 percent of the regular UN budget and 27 percent of the peacekeeping budget. I really think we need to take a good look at what we are paying for. While we are at it, I think we should strongly encourage the United Nations to find a new home.

Bill Ayers was a domestic terrorist. He wanted to overthrow the American government. Now he has signed a letter asking the U.N. to take action undermining American sovereignty. I really don’t think he has changed much.

Supporters of the law have stated that they will work to put together a new law that will get past the Court of Appeals. It should be noted that the law did not forbid sex offenders from using the Internet–the restriction was only only on the use of social networking websites. The question here is, “Are we willing to protect our children from people who have already shown that they prey on children?”

“Here in America, we know the free market is the greatest force for economic progress the world has ever known. But we also know the free market works best for everyone when we have smart, commonsense rules in place to prevent irresponsible behavior,”

That is an amazing statement. First of all, anyone who has children understands that putting rules in place to prevent irresponsible behavior does not always work–allowing people to suffer the consequences of their irresponsible behavior eventually works–sometimes it takes a while. Unfortunately our society has padded the floor too many times and has helped people avoid the consequences of their irresponsible behavior. Controlling the free market is not the answer–allowing the free market to work properly is.

Meanwhile, speaking of irresponsible behavior–what about irresponsible behavior that was encouraged by the government?

Remember the outrage over the exposure of ACORN travesties including voter fraud and offering advice on tax evasion that led to Congress overwhelmingly voting to defund the scandal plagued organization (345-71 in the House, 85-11 in the Senate)?

Less salacious, but far more economically disastrous was the “starring role” that ACORN played in precipitating the financial meltdown of 2008 initiated by the sub-prime mortgage market meltdown. According to acclaimed investigative journalist Matthew Vadum, ACORN’s “wanton disregard for the economic wellbeing of America” through the very direct involvement for decades in federal housing policy and programs at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, perpetually weakening underwriting standards, and ignoring or even falsifying loan documentation put ACORN squarely at the center of the collapse of the sub-prime mortgage house of cards.

Huge numbers of loans that eventually became the problem trace to ACORN originations. Vadum discovered that ACORN housing brochures openly bragged about how they undermined mortgage loan underwriting standards.

Joe McGavin used to be the director of counseling for ACORN housing in Chicago and operations manager for an ACORN offshoot, Affordable Housing Centers of America (ACHOA). After the scandal-ridden collapse of ACORN, McGavin resurfaced in 2011 as the new director of the Illinois Hardest Hit Program. The Hardest Hit Fund (HHF) is one of many programs established by the Obama Administration to “assist homeowners who have experienced an income reduction due to unemployment or substantial underemployment” during the economic recession.

Paul Mirengoff posted an article at Power Line explaining the sudden wonderful drop in the unemployment numbers released today.

The article reports:

But there’s a problem with the report: it doesn’t make sense. As Kevin Hassett points out, the 114,000 net jobs created in September is well below the average for this year (146,000) and the average for last year (153,000).

So how did the Department of Labor come up with an unemployment rate that indicates significant improvement in the jobs picture? It found the alleged improvement through its survey of households. As Hassett explains, the Labor Department’s jobs report is always based on two surveys, one of households and one of establishments.

Professional economists and the press usually emphasize the establishment survey because it is considered less volatile. This month, that survey continues to show the usual weakness in the job market. But the household survey purports to show massive improvement.

This sort of mathematical trickery was totally predictable to anyone who understands President Obama’s roots in Chicago politics. Over the next four weeks, we may actually be told that there is no unemployment actually remaining in America. These numbers are about as reliable as your teenage son telling you that there was a unicorn standing in the middle of the highway, and traffic slowed to a crawl to avoid an accident so he was late getting home.

Rahm Emanuel left his job in Washington working for President Obama to run for mayor of Chicago. He won the election and is now the mayor of Chicago. The relationship between Mayor Emanuel and President Obama was considered to be a close one of political allies and friends.

The Weekly Standard is reporting today that Mayor Emanuel is planning to block Chick-fil-A from opening its restaurants in Chicago.

The article at the Weekly Standard quotes Mayor Emanuel:

“Chick-fil-A’s values are not Chicago values. They’re not respectful of our residents, our neighbors and our family members. And if you’re gonna be part of the Chicago community, you should reflect Chicago values,”

The values Mayor Emanuel is referring to are the Bible-based Christian values of the owner of Chick-fil-A. The owner does not support gay marriage. Evidently, if you speak out about your Christian beliefs, you are not welcome to do business in Chicago.

But what are Chicago values? At the same time Mayor Emanuel was attempting to block Chick-fil-A from doing business in Chicago, he was welcoming Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan

Some quotes from Louis Farrakhan:

Many of the Jews who owned the homes, the apartments in the black community, we considered them bloodsuckers because they took from our community and built their community but didn’t offer anything back to our community.

The Jews don’t like Farrakhan, so they call me Hitler. Well, that’s a good name. Hitler was a very great man.

Why has Louis Farrakhan come to Chicago? The article reports:

Ignoring Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan’s history of anti-Semitic remarks, Mayor Rahm Emanuel on Wednesday welcomed the army of men dispatched to the streets by Farrakhan to stop the violence in Chicago neighborhoods.

The canary in the coal mine is in trouble. When bad things happen to the Jews or to Israel, shortly afterward, bad things begin to happen to the rest of us.

Breitbart.com is reporting today that Turkey has blocked Israel from attending a NATO summit to be held in Chicago in May. The Turks claim that the move was made in retaliation for the refusal of Israel to formally apologize for its attack on the Mavi Marmara.

The article reports:

The Obama Administration, whose fearless leader just assured Jews of his support for Israel at the Holocaust Museum, was noncommittal in its response when queried whether they would openly state to NATO that they wanted Israel to participate. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland was evasive when she was confronted:

Q: Well, would you be — would the United [States] — would the administration be comfortable if Israel did not participate?

MS. NULAND: Again, we — there are many, many ways that these partnership activities may go forward. They’ve been done in different ways at different summits. So I’m not going to get into what we’re talking about, how it might work, who’s going to come. We’re still working on all of that.

Q: You — the administration won’t come out and say that it wants Israel to be at the — to participate at the — at the — at the summit in Chicago?

MS. NULAND: We haven’t made any announcements …

Q: … If you can’t come out and say that the United States wants Israel to participate, its main ally in the Middle East, and you won’t come out and say that the administration wants them to participate in whatever event is going on in Chicago, that’s — that is going to be seized on …

MS. NULAND: So every summit is done on a case-by-case basis, and we haven’t made a decision about who’s going to be invited yet …

Q: … But the Turks wouldn’t be objecting to Israel’s participation, if someone hadn’t proposed that Israel participate. And if you have proposed that they participate —

MS. NULAND: Again —

Q: — and you’re not willing to stick up for it, I don’t understand why —

MS. NULAND: I’m not going to get into, here, what we have proposed and where we are in the internal dialogue at NATO until the issues are settled by consensus.

So Turkey, whose government is now run by Islamists and whose leader is ostensibly Obama’s friend, is dictating policy to the United States. And as usual, Obama is only too willing to throw Israel under the bus.

At the risk of sounding totally disrespectful, I fully believe that in 2008 we elected a Chicago thug to the White House. The list of reasons why I believe this is long–it includes disregard for the Constitution (attacking the Supreme Court), trying to undermine the right to bear arms (Fast and Furious), and just general tackiness (which I guess is not a serious crime, but sometimes it ought to be!).

As we approach the 2012 election, the press, possibly in an effort to regain some semblance of credibility before they begin to act as Obama campaign workers, are beginning to report things that we all knew, but they weren’t reporting.

The Weekly Standard posted an article today citing a rather lengthy New York Times article (is there any other kind?) entitled, “White House Opens Door to Big Donors, and Lobbyists Slip In.” Are we supposed to be surprised?

The article at the Weekly Standard reports:

Patrick J. Kennedy, the former representative from Rhode Island, who donated $35,800 to an Obama re-election fund last fall while seeking administration support for a nonprofit venture, said contributions were simply a part of “how this business works.”

“If you want to call it ‘quid pro quo,’ fine,” he said. “At the end of the day, I want to make sure I do my part.”

It seems to me that that shouldn’t be “simply a part of how this business works.” It really is time to clean house in Washington–and the house cleaning has to be the President, the Congress, and the bureaucrats who continue to spend taxpayer money recklessly–whether they are staffers or government employees. The taxpayers of America need to take our country back.

Cardinal Francis George is the archbishop of Chicago and former head of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB). His comments on President Obama’s recent ruling on contraception coverage at Catholic Institutions were posted at CNS News yesterday.

The bottom line on his comments:

He continued: “What will happen if the HHS regulations are not rescinded? A Catholic institution, so far as I can see right now, will have one of four choices: 1) secularize itself, breaking its connection to the church, her moral and social teachings and the oversight of its ministry by the local bishop. This is a form of theft. It means the church will not be permitted to have an institutional voice in public life. 2) Pay exorbitant annual fines to avoid paying for insurance policies that cover abortifacient drugs, artificial contraception and sterilization. This is not economically sustainable. 3) Sell the institution to a non-Catholic group or to a local government. 4) Close down.”

This is an intentional effort to take the voice of religious people out of the public square. When you consider that the basis of the American legal system is the Judeo-Christian ethic, this is a rather amazing step by our government.

The Cardinal further stated:

“Liberty of religion is more than freedom of worship,” says the cardinal. “Freedom of worship was guaranteed in the Constitution of the former Soviet Union. You could go to church, if you could find one. The church, however, could do nothing except conduct religious rites in places of worship — no schools, religious publications, health care institutions, organized charity, ministry for justice and the works of mercy that flow naturally from a living faith. All of these were co-opted by the government. We fought a long cold war to defeat that vision of society.”

It is my opinion that all Christian churches in America need to stand with the Catholic Church on this issue. The church (other than the Catholic church) stood quietly while the Catholic adoption agencies in Massachusetts were shut down due to Biblical standards upheld by the Catholic church on homosexuality. We can’t afford to stand quietly now as Catholic hospitals are denied their rights to be Catholic hospitals.

Ed Morrissey at Hot Airposted a story today about two high-ranking union officials who took advantage of a legal loophole in the Illinois pension law to collect a $100,000 per year pension for teaching one day in school. A bill was passed recently that:

…enabled union officials to get into the state teachers pension fund and count their previous years as union employees after quickly obtaining teaching certificates and working in a classroom. They just had to do it before the bill was signed into law.

The article at Hot Air Reports:

Although the bill received bipartisan support, the benefit to union officials was sponsored by Springfield Democrats showered by IFT campaign contributions during the 2006 elections.

“The people that are on the inside and understand the process are going to be able to make the system work for their advantage,” said Kent Redfield, who teaches political science at the University of Illinois Springfield. “That this legislation got a hearing and got considered and passed is a reflection of that close relationship between the IFT and the Democratic leadership.

“It feeds into the cynicism about all the deals, that it’s an insider’s game and that the system is rigged.”

Meanwhile, Illinois residents have been hit with tax increases because the spending by the state is out of control. Overspending by government is both a local and national problem. Until the unions and the democrat politicians stop working toward taking as much money as possible from working people while blaming the rich for the state of the economy, our country’s financial problems will continue.

Today’s Chicago Sun-Times is reporting that the union workers at Ford Motor Company’s Chicago assembly plan have voted to reject a new four-year contract proposed by Ford Motor Company.

I would like to repost a quote from an article posted at rightwinggranny.com on September 19, 2011:

Workers at Chrysler Group LLC, whose contract also expired on September 14, continue to negotiate for terms of their new deal.

The UAW is not allowed to call strikes for workers at GM and Chrysler under the terms of the federal bailouts which those companies received.

Workers at Ford Motor (which did not receive a federal bailout, which allows them to strike) are also in talks for a new contract.

One of the problems the union workers have with the proposed contract:

Some workers are angry that in the wake of Ford earning $9.3 billion in profits the last two years, the contract does not give back some of the things they lost in previous agreements, including cost-of-living raises. They are also mad about Ford CEO Alan Mulally’s $26.5 million pay package for 2010.

Also included in the proposed contract:

The deal would also commit Ford to hiring a total of 2,000 workers in the Chicago area, including 1,100 to be part of a new third shift at the company’s Chicago assembly plant. The contract agreement calls for Ford to hire 900 workers at its stamping plant and assembly plant within the next four years.

The most amazing statement in the article:

Morton (Grant Morton, United Auto Workers Union Local 551 plant chairman) said he still expects the 1,100 new jobs and new third shift at Ford’s Chicago assembly plant even if the contract does not pass. That is because the company plans to produce sedan and SUV versions of its new Police Interceptor vehicle at the plant. The vehicle will be launched in February. The plant has already produced a couple hundred of the Interceptors, according to Morton. The plant also produces the Lincoln MKS, Ford Taurus and Ford Explorer.

Something has gone horribly wrong with the way people look at their jobs and the companies that hire them. I suppose heads of corporations make ridiculous money. They also work a lot of hours and carry a lot of weight on their shoulders, why shouldn’t they be paid for it? What relationship does that have to the man who does an honest day’s work on an assembly line and goes home when the whistle blows? As employees, we need to be concerned about making ourselves more valuable to the companies we work for rather than worrying what the officers of the company make. I guess this is a very old-fashioned idea, but generally speaking, people are paid for the jobs they do. Some industries pay better than others, and some jobs pay better than others, but usually if you want a really high-paying job, you either have to have skills that are unique and hard to find, or you have to work at a job that has a high risk of failure. Those of us who are ‘average’ are going to receive ‘average’ wages. I’m sorry, that’s just the way it is, and no amount of labor disruption or strikes against companies will change that. The only thing a prolonged strike against Ford will do is create financial problems for the company and put jobs at risk. Considering the economics of the present time, that is probably not a really good idea.